Q: Examine the factors responsible for the rural unrest in contemporary India.

Model Answer:

As A.R. Desai argued, the agrarian question lies at the core of India’s wider class struggles. However, contemporary rural unrest has shifted from historical anti-feudal movements to anti-state and anti-market conflicts. Sharad Joshi conceptualized this as the “India vs. Bharat” divide, highlighting the structural alienation felt by the rural populace against urban-biased macroeconomic policies.

Structural and Economic Transformations

• Andre Beteille & the “Caste-Class Nexus”: In Caste, Class and Power, Beteille notes the breakdown of traditional caste-class congruence creates structural friction. This nexus often manifests as violence between landowning dominant OBCs and landless Dalit laborers.
• D.N. Dhanagare on Peasant Classes: Unlike historical struggles, contemporary unrest is heavily driven by middle and rich peasants (surplus producers) facing neoliberal market volatility, corporatization, and shrinking state procurement.
• Jan Breman & “Footloose Labour”: The informalization of rural labor and the breakdown of traditional patronage (Jajmani) drive precarity, displacement, and everyday resistance among marginalized, landless groups.

Socio-Cultural and Ecological Dispossession

• Dipankar Gupta & Surinder Jodhka: Gupta’s “vanishing village” meets Jodhka’s “blocked mobility.” Rural youth reject unviable farming but face jobless urban growth, fueling volatile identity-based reservation agitations (e.g., Jats, Marathas).
• Subaltern Perspective: Ranajit Guha and David Hardiman view Adivasi unrest (e.g., Niyamgiri, Pathalgadi) against resource extraction as continued subaltern resistance against the hegemony of the modern developmental state.
• Bina Agarwal & Gender: The feminization of agriculture entails structural patriarchal violence, leaving women managing distressed farms without land titles or state credit amidst male out-migration.

The 2020-21 Farm Law protests showcased agrarian classes utilizing kinship, Khaps, and religious institutions (Langars) to sustain economic resistance against agricultural corporatization. Conversely, state interventions like PM-KISAN are sociologically critiqued as superficial “band-aid solutions” that ignore entrenched land inequities.

Conclusion

Contemporary rural unrest is symptomatic of India’s painful transition from a traditional agrarian society to a capitalist market economy. As Dipankar Gupta notes, the village is no longer an idyllic community but an arena of competing interests. Sustainable peace requires moving beyond welfarism to structurally democratizing market access, resolving landlessness, and ensuring grassroots social justice.